Crying foul over the blatant disregard to norms and therefore the environment intrinsically in Madhya Pradesh as elsewhere, the National Environment Parliament held in Bhopal on Thursday drawn up sustained growth to confirm minimum harm to the environment and ensuring a safer future.
In his address within the conclave attended by environment activists from across the country, Bhopal based green activist Dr Subhas C Pandey quoting a search paper published in 2016, shared an alarming data that if things remain as they’re, Bhopal city’s total green cover which stood at 66% in 1990 will deplete to meagre 4% by 2025.
Dr TV Ramchandran from the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore had published a probe paper in 2016 studying the gradual depletion of green cover in four major cities including Bhopal. The scholar blaming the unplanned growth in these cities for the fast depletion of green cover had claimed that by 2025, this cover could shrink as low as 4%.
Going by the prevailing circumstances within the city, the end result only seems a real understatement,” said Dr Pandey.
He while using this as his research base and using Google images, had mapped the destruction of greenery in Bhopal between 2009 and 2019 dividing the town into 13 zones. The outcomes of the study were equally alarming as nine of the town areas saw the destruction of green cover over 225-acre in ten years.
If an acre of the world has 450 trees, these areas lost around one lakh trees, he said, adding most of the trees were over 50-years-old. supported Dr TV Ramchandran’s formula, the green cover within the city which stood at 35% in 2009 has shrunk to 9% by 2019, said Dr Pandey also claiming that blatant disregard to plan of town by the political fraternity, things have gone from bad to worse.
This led to increased pollution, depleted formation, hampered ecology and reduced oxygen percentage in air, added the environment researcher. The Smart City project too has proved a menace for the green cover within the city, he said.
None of the 18 ponds of the town is left with potable water, said Dr Pandey, adding the Upper Lake supplies potable water to around 40% population within the city.
Sharad Singh Kumre, the convener of the environment parliament, claimed that the green volunteers will now take up the problem of depleting green cover within the city on the best priority.
Manish Jain Amit Bhatnagar, an activist engaged with the Save Buxwaha project, claimed that the local persons don’t want the diamond project and are in favour of saving the vast natural forest which faces the axe thanks to the diamond excavation project within the area.
The Ken-Betwa river link, an ambitious river inter-link project that’s expected to be inaugurated earlier than the UP Assembly polls also resonated within the event with environment activist Amit Bhatnagar saying that as an alternate, traditional water bodies can be revived for addressing water scarcity within the Bundelkhand region.
The volunteers demanded sustained and planned growth for a secure and secured future. The event also adopted a resolution for saving the environment and urging policymakers to amend ways.
